20 Pfennigs - Bachem Gewerkschaft Schallmauer

Gewerkschaft Schallmauer was a coal mining cooperative operating in the Bachem district of the Rhineland. This token belongs to the vast emergency coinage — Kriegsnotgeld — produced by German industrial operations in 1918 when the imperial government's wartime metal requisitions had gutted the regular coin supply. Mining operations were considered strategically essential, and many collieries issued their own zinc or iron scrip to keep workers paid and canteen economies functioning when Reichsbank-issued small change simply wasn't reaching them.